Gobi Desert

The Gobi is one of the largest deserts in Asia, covering parts of southern Mongolia and northern China. Unlike the famous hot deserts of Africa and Arabia, the Gobi is a cold desert: in winter, temperatures can drop to -40 °C, and you can sometimes see snow on the dunes. The Gobi is also one of the most important places in the world for finding dinosaur fossils.

  • Area1.3 million km²About 5 times the size of the UK
  • CountriesMongolia and ChinaMostly in southern Mongolia
  • Hottest temperatureapprox. 45 °CIn summer
  • Coldest temperature-40 °CIn winter, sometimes with snow
  • Rainfallapprox. 190 mm/yearHigher than the Sahara but still very dry
  • Famous forDinosaur fossilsAnd rare wild Bactrian camels

The Gobi compared to other deserts

Area (million km²)
Sahara9.2
Gobi1.3
Kalahari0.9
Atacama0.1

The Gobi is the fifth largest non-polar desert in the world. It is mostly rocky and stony, not sandy.

What is the Gobi?

The Gobi sits in the rain shadow of the Himalayas. Moist air from the Indian Ocean is wrung out as rain by the time it climbs up over the world's tallest mountains, and what reaches the other side is bone dry. The result is a vast cold desert in the heart of Asia. The Gobi is mostly bare rock, gravel and steppe grass. The famous sand dunes (the "Singing Dunes" of the Khongoryn Els in Mongolia) cover only approx. 5% of the desert.

The Silk Road

The Gobi was a major obstacle and a vital trade route on the ancient Silk Road. Caravans of camels carrying silk, spices, paper and tea between China and the Middle East had to cross the desert. Trading cities like Dunhuang and Turpan in western China grew up as oases where travellers could rest, eat and trade. The Silk Road was the world's most important international trade route for over 1,500 years.

Fact The Gobi is one of the most important places on Earth for finding dinosaur fossils. The first ever fossilised dinosaur eggs were discovered there in 1923. Famous dinosaurs first identified in the Gobi include the Velociraptor (made famous by Jurassic Park), the Protoceratops, and the Oviraptor.

The Bactrian camel

The Gobi is one of the last places on Earth where the rare wild Bactrian camel still lives. Unlike the one-humped dromedary camels of the Sahara, the Bactrian camel has two humps. There are approx. 1,000 wild Bactrians left, all in the Gobi (mostly in the Mongolian and Chinese parts). They are critically endangered. Their domesticated cousins (which look almost identical) are still used as pack animals across central Asia.

The Gobi is growing

The Gobi has been growing in recent decades. Climate change and overgrazing in the surrounding grasslands have caused the desert to expand into nearby Chinese regions at a rate of around 3,600 square km per year. Chinese cities have suffered increasingly bad sandstorms as winds blow Gobi dust eastward into Beijing and Korea. The Chinese government has planted a "Great Green Wall" of trees on the desert edge to try to slow the expansion, with limited success.

Did you know? The Genghis Khan-era empire of the Mongols, based right next to the Gobi, became the largest land empire in history in the 1200s. Mongol horsemen could cross the Gobi at speed and used it as a base from which to attack China.
Deeper dive: the rain shadow, the Khongoryn Els and the Roy Chapman Andrews expeditions

The Gobi is the largest cold-winter desert in the world and exists primarily because of the rain shadow of the Himalayan and Tibetan ranges. Moist air from the Indian Ocean rises over the Himalayas, cools, and dumps its moisture as rain on the southern slopes (in India, Nepal and Bhutan). By the time the air descends on the northern side and continues across the Tibetan Plateau into central Asia, it is bone dry. The result is the chain of central Asian deserts: the Gobi, the Taklamakan, and others. Cold-winter conditions arise because the desert sits at high latitude (over 40°N) and high elevation (much of it over 900 metres).

The "Singing Dunes" of the Khongoryn Els are a 100 km long stretch of sand dunes in southern Mongolia, the largest sand area in the Gobi. The dunes get their name from the booming, humming or singing sound the sand makes when wind moves it. Singing dunes occur at only approx. 35 sites worldwide and are caused by the very specific size, smoothness and roundness of the sand grains, plus the right humidity. The vibrations from the sand grains sliding past each other create a sound wave that can be heard up to 10 km away.

The Gobi became scientifically famous through the Roy Chapman Andrews expeditions in the 1920s. Andrews was an American naturalist (and one of the real-life inspirations for the character of Indiana Jones) who led a series of expeditions from the American Museum of Natural History into the Gobi between 1922 and 1930. The expeditions used motor cars supported by camel caravans, an unprecedented combination at the time. They discovered the first known dinosaur eggs, the first known nests of dinosaurs, the first Velociraptor, the Protoceratops, the Oviraptor, and many other species. Modern Mongolian and Chinese palaeontologists have continued the work, and the Gobi remains one of the world's greatest dinosaur fossil sites.

The country with most of the Gobi is Mongolia. The other great central Asian desert is the Taklamakan.

Geography

The Gobi Desert spans about 1.295 million km² across southern Mongolia and northern China. Unlike hot deserts, it is mostly rocky terrain — only about 5% is sandy. It sits on a high plateau averaging 910–1,520 metres elevation, which explains its cold temperatures. The Gobi contains significant mountain ranges, dried river valleys and the Mongolian Steppe on its northern edges.

Climate

The Gobi is a cold desert with extreme temperature swings. Winters are severe, reaching −40°C, while summers can see temperatures above 45°C — a range of 85°C in a single year. Annual rainfall is very low (100–200 mm). The desert is famous for its howling winds and dust storms that can reduce visibility to zero.

Wildlife and plants

The Gobi supports Bactrian camels (the two-humped wild variety, critically endangered), snow leopards, Mongolian wild ass (khulan), Gobi brown bears (critically endangered), black-tailed gazelles, golden eagles and numerous lizard species. The Gobi is one of the world's richest sources of dinosaur fossils, including complete nests with eggs.

History

The Gobi was traversed by the ancient Silk Road trade routes connecting China to the Mediterranean. Genghis Khan unified the Mongol tribes of the Gobi region in the early 13th century and went on to create the largest contiguous land empire in history. The desert was crossed by the explorer Marco Polo in the 13th century. Today it faces major threats from mining and desertification.